On Turkey's elections.
Alp Kayserilioglu joins us to talk about a crucial election. Erdogan’s rule is seriously threatened for the first time, with high inflation biting into living standards.
Who are the main candidates and do what they propose? Where does AKP draw its support from, and what has sustained...
2023-05-10 18:07:45 +0000 UTC View PostThe first three episodes of the 2023 Reading Club saw us carrying out an in-depth reading of Martin Hagglund's This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom
The fourth and...
2023-05-09 20:33:21 +0000 UTC View Post
On who owns the power.
Matt Huber joins us to discuss his article, "Socialist Politics and the Electricity Grid", and how organised labour is central to a politics of plenty. What is the grid and who owns it? What are the limitations of a "100% renewables" approach?
On the politics of energy, the left is div...
2023-05-09 15:12:47 +0000 UTC View Post
On Nigeria's 'end of the end of history'.
Sa'eed Husaini from The Nigerian Scam podcast joins us to reflect on all things Nigeria: oil, debt, corruption and February's election. What was all that hype about the 'outsider' who ...
2023-05-02 20:17:11 +0000 UTC View Post
On history-ending technology.
[Patreon Exclusive]
The economist Tyler Cowen recently suggested that radical technological change today marks a turning point in history. Is he right, and how would we evaluate such a claim?
Should we be sceptical about these big claims, especially given all the Silicon Valley-...
2023-04-25 06:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
On the US cultural climate.
Renowned/notorious writer Norman Finkelstein joins us to discuss the themes of his latest and last book, I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It!
What unites the leading intellectual proponents of wokeness today, people like Ibram X Kendi or Kimberlé Crenshaw? How do they diffe...
2023-04-18 15:29:35 +0000 UTC View Post
On your questions & criticisms.
[Patreon Exclusive]
Is the Left dead? Did the turn to culture really kill it? Or is the nostalgia for the post-war Left the real problem?
We also debate what the function of imperialism in Africa is; the 'pro-worker' conservatives in the US; surveillance of app workers; wh...
2023-04-11 13:13:38 +0000 UTC View Post
On Inhuman Power.
[Unlocked episode from Bungacast 'Reading Club', originally released 6 December 2022]
Contemporary capitalism is possessed by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) question – one of the few areas today in which capitalists still seem to have ambition. Why is this so, and is there something ...
2023-04-06 13:48:09 +0000 UTC View PostDue to a logistical mix-up / Bezos' generosity, we have a spare copy of Jürgen Habermas' Legitimation Crisis to send out to a patron who's a member of the Reading Club (and is based in the UK due to postage costs). This is the text we'll be doing June to September.
First come, first served: please reply to thi...
2023-04-05 13:27:53 +0000 UTC View Post
On cracked-up capitalism.
[Patreon Exclusive]
We continue our discussion with Quinn Slobodian on his book, Crack-Up Capitalism. Is the movement for police abolitionism a case of left-neoliberalism, and if so would the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) be one of those 'zones' Slobodian analyses?
Wh...
2023-04-04 06:02:00 +0000 UTC View Post
On cracked-up capitalism.
Historian of ideas Quinn Slobodian joins us again, this time to discuss his latest book, Crack-up Capitalism – the vision of a global capitalism with its constituent nation-states perforated by ‘zones’ shorn of any national oversight or democratic accountability. We talk through...
On depicting dystopia.
Acclaimed cartoonists, writers and artists Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson join us for something a little different: to talk about their new comic book, Justice Warriors. Set in a grotesquely unequal world, a police procedural (of sorts) encounters an astrology-based social movement seek...
2023-03-28 07:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
On geopolitical competition over Africa.
[Patreon Exclusive]
In light of the 'new Cold War', we look at what the US, Europe, Russia and China's respective "pitches" are to African countries – what are they selling? And we examine the factors that contribute to Africa's place in geopolitics today: Chinese hu...
2023-03-21 17:09:00 +0000 UTC View Post
On the crisis of crisis.
Bulgarian critical theorist Albena Azmanova joins us to discuss her widely-discussed 2020 book, Capitalism on Edge...
2023-03-14 07:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostAs previously announced, the 2023 Reading Club will focus on three principal works. The first part of the year will be an in-depth reading of 2023-03-13 13:33:55 +0000 UTC View Post
On what comes after neo-liberalism.
[Patreon Exclusive]
After 40 years of neo-liberalism, governments are inching their way to some new settlement, under the pressure of repeated crises, as well as populist upsurges. In this episode we try to take a political, not academic, approach to the question. This is not ab...
2023-03-07 14:40:52 +0000 UTC View Post
On the mainstreaming of racial thinking.
We welcome back author and broadcaster Kenan Malik to talk about his new book, Not So Black and White. The book presents a historical account of how racial thinking has accompanied the spread of notions of equality and common humanity. How is it that many supposed ...
2023-02-28 07:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
On the app economy.
[Patreon Exclusive]
Delivery apps have taken the world by storm, and the pandemic only deepened our dependence on them. What is the price of convenience – and is there anything wrong with wanting ease? Capitalist keep propping up these money-losing enterprises – why? And can they survi...
2023-02-21 07:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
On The Covid Consensus.
[Patreon Exclusive]
In the second part of the interview, we discuss the devastating impact of lockdowns on poor and middle-income countries where the informal economy is the norm. How did the consensus go global?
And we discuss those few countries that bucked the trend ...
2023-02-14 07:02:00 +0000 UTC View Post
On The Covid Consensus.
We're joined by two authors whose new book asks why lockdowns were adopted almost universally. National and transnational health authorities dropped pre-pandemic plans in favour of open-ended nationwide lockdowns which were to remain in place until vaccines were developed. Why this cours...
2023-02-14 07:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
On your questions and criticisms.
[Patreon Exclusive]
A bumper episode as we respond to your points from December through to the end of January. We discuss 'political capitalism', where the left is today, atomisation, degrowth, disciplining the working class, critical cinema, and family abolition.
2023-02-07 07:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
On the left's understanding of freedom.
[Patreon Exclusive]
We continue our talk with Steve Hall and Simon Winlow, social scientists in the northeast of England, about their new book, The Death of the Left: Wh...
2023-01-31 07:02:00 +0000 UTC View Post
On the death of the left.
We talk to Steve Hall and Simon Winlow, social scientists in the northeast of England, about their new book, The Death of the Left: Why We Must Begin From the Beginning Again.<...
2023-01-31 07:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post[UPDATE: see bold sections below]
As previously announced, the 2023 Reading Club will focus on three principal works. We will start the year by doing an in-depth reading of 2023-01-30 16:37:26 +0000 UTC View Post
On labour militancy and our predictions for 2023.
[Patreon Exclusive]
We discuss what the substance is of the apparent rise in labour militancy in some Western countries, and contrast it with the reality that much protest is directed at the state.
We finish of by identifying some things to look f...
2023-01-24 07:02:01 +0000 UTC View Post
On the key events and developments in 2022.
We look back at how the world transitioned from the pandemic to war over the past year, and what the socio-political fallouts have been. Is everything "better than expected"? Has managerial technocracy been rejuvenated?
We discuss whether we're in a Third Wor...
2023-01-24 07:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
The 2023 Reading Club will broach three key themes to understand politics in our current era: FREEDOM, LEGITIMACY, GLOBALISATION.
This year we will focus on three key texts, one per theme:
On cinema in 2023 and 'anti-capitalist' film & TV.
[Patreon Exclusive]
We continue our discussion with Maren Thom and Alex Dale from the Performance Anxiety podcast. We debate representation in film, and the backlash against wokeness as a form of anti-politics.
Also, looking forward to what cinema...
2023-01-17 13:45:39 +0000 UTC View Post
On aesthetic criticism & performance.
The hosts of a new podcast on film, Performance Anxiety, join us to talk about how a focus on performance can break through endless squabbles over wokeness and representation in film.
We also discuss our best and worst films of 2022.
Links:
On the achievement of democracy and the 'impartial' state.
We speak to sociologist Dylan Riley about his new book Microverses, a series of aphorisms on social theory and politics.
The rational-legal state...
2023-01-10 07:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
